We Are The Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale

SYNOPSIS Thomas Nigel Kneale may not be a household name, but those who know him revere him. And those who don t know the name, will certainly have felt his influence. In many ways the father of television drama in the UK, he was also, in every way, a successor to H.G. Wells and M.R. James in his impact. The missing link in the genre chain that leads from Wells to J.G. Ballard. Why is he so little known? Perhaps because he was a screenwriter in the days before TV thought to preserve its output, and because many of his most successful works dealt with Science Fiction and the Supernatural. But he was a pioneer. He pushed the medium in a new direction with THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT, forging a more vivid, more cinematic means of telling stories, with Producer/Director Rudolph Cartier. He demanded more from Television... in terms of style, and content. Filling his stories with ideas as well as emotion. Time after time, he broke new ground, tested the boundaries; provoked as he enthralled, made us think as he made us feel... THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT, THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS, QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, THE ROAD, THE STONE TAPE, BEASTS... In the UK, there s not a single TV drama dealing in Speculative ideas that does not owe him a debt; directly, or by the ripples of influence that preceded them... Now the authors, critics and screenwriters who have been moved and influenced by his work, come together to celebrate his life, his work, and his extraordinary legacy in: WE ARE THE MARTIANS: The Legacy Of Nigel Kneale. CONTENTS Foreword - Mark Gatiss Introduction - Neil Snowdon King Of Hauntology - Mark Chadbourn The Literary Kneale - Tim Lucas The Quatermass Conception - Stephen Bissette A Conversation With Judith Kerr - Neil Snowdon On Nigel Kneale - Ramsey Campbell The Quatermass Legacy: A Personal Reflection On Kneale And His Influence - David Pirie Creeping Unknown Pt1: Wuthering Heights, The Crunch, Nineteen Eighty Four - Kim Newman Phenomena Badly Observed, And Wrongly Explained: Quatermass, The Pit, And Me - John Llewellyn Probert Under The Influence - Maura McHugh A Conversation With Joe Dante - Neil Snowdon Brief Encounter - Stephen Laws Adaptation And Anger, Or The Nigel Kneale-John Osbourne Synthesis - Richard Harland Smith The Promised End Nigel Kneale s Lost Masterpiece from 1963: The Road - Jonathan Rigby A Conversation With Mark Gatiss - Neil Snowdon Cool The Audience, Cool The World: Media, Mind Control & The Modern Family - Kier-La Janisse Pushing The Door He Unlocked: Ghostwatch And The Stone Tape - Stephen Volk Beasts: An Overview - Mark Morris It Would Have Been Suckled, You Know : Beasts And Baby An Appreciation - Jeremy Dyson Quatermass: Rebirth & Ressurection Jez Winship The Quatermass Conclusion: An Interview With Nigel Kneale - David Sutton. Creeping Unknown Pt2: Kinvig Kim Newman In Pursuit Of Unhappy Endings: Chris Burt & Herbert Wise on The Woman In Black - Tony Earnshaw Where s Kneale When You Need Him- Thana Niveau Creeping Unknown Pt3: Sharpe's Gold & Kavanagh QC - Kim Newman On Wishing For A Nigel Kneale Childhood - Lynda E. Rucker

About the Author

NEIL SNOWDON is a writer, editor, film programmer, and publisher whose work has appeared in the pages of Video Watchdog, Rue Morgue, and FEAR. He is the Commissioning Editor of Electric Dreamhouse Press, a new cinema imprint formed in conjunction with PS Publishing, Series Editor of the Midnight Movie Monographs line, and co-founder of Novocastria Macabre with author Stephen Laws an umbrella organisation bringing genre events to Newcastle and the North East of England.

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